Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

nonrandomstring

Never.

Or, as a realistic ideal, as little as you possibly can.

On the other other hand I ferociously criticise bad ideas.

People are not their ideas. Bad ideas are like mimetic parasites, replicating through and infecting a host.

Some bad ideas are harmless opinions. Other bad ideas are a grave harm to their host, and society around them.

While people jave every "right" to hold them, sometimes attacking bad ideas seems like an attack on a person (ad hominem), which should be consciously avoided. A person, qua soul, is seldom even responsible for what they host and parrot [1]. But they are responsible for spreading those ideas, which is why teachers, parents and trash social media have much to answer for. And, I believe, it is a duty and responsibility to help people be free of bad ideas, or if possible to steer them away from them. By the same token I believe people who spread bad ideas for profit and personal gain are the most damaged, and damaging of all.

It is a shame in our presently over-defensive culture where people identify with their ideas that the reaction of some people is to perceive an attack on them-self, as a person. Good criticusm of bad ideas should always be welcome.

[1] https://genius.com/Smog-vessel-in-vain-lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoiNXDpDkok

If someone has consistently bad ideas, you're not going to have a high opinion of their future ideas. If these are work ideas, they may also not be able to keep their job, which affects their livelihood. I don't know if we can get away with saying that taking away someone's job is not some kind of attack on their livelihood/self. So if you, the worker, are worried about having bad ideas that can affect your job, it isn't a stretch that the reaction to criticism can look like a reaction to a threat.

Now, criticizing hot takes and bad opinions on Twitter? Go for it, although that too can result in real consequences.

Part of who we are definitely involves the connections we make, and you can lose more shallow connections with bad ideas - good friends/deep connections tend to love you regardless. If you are trying to take your work seriously, but everyone ends up criticizing your ideas, it will also affect you.

Um, people have bad intentions and actions too, not just ideas. You can criticize them for that.

> It is a shame in our presently over-defensive culture

Over-defensive, or over-hostile... I mean i think the defensiveness has a cause in other people's behavior.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who have bad intentions but these days I seems more common to assume they do when they don't. Usually this is an indirect conclusion. "You're pro local business? You clearly hate others you racist". The 2nd does not follow from the first but the person judgin has assumed bad intentions

It really depends on what one considers bad and good. People against immigration and helping the poor or workers in general are going to be seen as having bad intentions by many, people for bodily autonomy are going to be seen as having bad intentions by American Christians, Catholics and others, then we have a growing population who just support outright wars of invasion, genocide and ethnic cleansing, so...

> people for bodily autonomy are going to be seen as having bad intentions by American Christians,

You mean anti-vaxxers? (My body, my choice, right?)

> People against immigration and helping the poor or workers in general are going to be seen as having bad intentions by many

And what about people who disagree with what you think "[helps] the poor"?

That's the point you seemed to have missed. Value judgements subjective. Read the first sentence of the post again.

it's more that the intention does not matter compared with its effects. good intention is a defense used to deflect attention from systemic effect

No, analysis of intentions are used to prevent effects. If someone says they want to kill al Jews, then we can actually stop them before they have any power to do such a thing.

I really enjoyed your comment. Nevertheless, I have to ask: what is a person if not their ideas? Their actions?

I'd argue that a person is their decisions. That encompasses actions - we generally decide whether and how to act.

This also rings true when you add "bad thoughts" alongside "bad ideas". Everyone has bad thoughts in addition to bad ideas. Part of what makes a good person is their ability to discard (or at least decide to not act on) bad thoughts. Part of what makes someone seem wise is their ability to discard (or decide to not act on) bad ideas.

>Part of what makes a good person is their ability to discard (or at least decide to not act on) bad thoughts.

I think this part is really key, and that the quality and characteristics of your "internal idea killer" ends up defining what kind of person you are, in almost all aspects of your life. For example, think of someone you may know that regularly just sticks with their first idea on any topic, or someone you have seen latch on to a mediocre idea for far too long. Now compare them to the person you know most likely to quickly discard ideas and come up with new ones, either instinctively all the time or at the first sign their previous ideas were not holding up to snuff.

I think every person entertains many ideas. Being receptive to possibilities does not define you, but it may incline you. 'Criticism' can play a valuable role in helping you see demerits in your inclinations before you misbehave.

That is a very deep question.

Here is an example of a range of ways to think about that question: https://philosophynow.org/issues/149/What_is_a_Person

If one thinks that agency (and actions) is what defined personhood, it is worth having a framework for thinking about free will, such as https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-think-about-free-will-in-a-w...

Ideas are different than actions.

The most competent and predictably conscientious people often don't have very good ideas at all.

I'd really question the idea that a person even "has" ideas rather than responds to the world ("internal" and "external") in specific patterns after specific experiences. But if you must, a person is a body, so it's the body that has the ideas and as far as anyone else cares, a body's appearance, actions and intentions are the only thing they could really care about.

People change over time. Just as a sick person can recover from illness, a person can shake off bad ideas. Similarly, a person may right their wrong actions. That’s why I think we should be careful not to forsake them.

As others have answered in this very thoughtful thread, it's a most deep and puzzling question. As is the distinctions between ideas, intentions, and actions - the basis of much jurisprudence - which is examined here too.

However there is the truly horrifying idea in Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, which once you comprehend it is so dark that even those who call themselves 'nihilists' recoil from it. And yet maybe we should celebrate it because it's Kierkegaard through and through - that we have 'no essential self'. If we are possessed by a soul it is as an observer, a witness to a perfect drama involving other mind-bodies, each equally devoid of a central "self". That can be a relief. But as was discussed here recently with regard to mindfulness and Buddhism, that "idea" can itself be dangerous, for some it's a license to be a dick. Perhaps nature/evolution is clever in giving us all a little anxious piece, a "self" that can be hurt, since that allows social structures.

When an employee consistently targets a teammate and continues to criticize his, but not criticize other teammate's shoddy work, what idea of his should I be criticizing?

When an employee consistently commits to doing work and then fails to later on, justifying it (post-hoc, after the deadline) with "I think we shouldn't go in that direction", what idea of his should I criticize?

I could say that I can criticize his failure to meet his commitments, but we're just mincing words. In common parlance, that's equivalent to criticizing him.

"People are not their ideas."

I disagree with this. If people are not their ideas, then why arrest people who join terrorist groups or write manifestos saying they want to harm people? If people are not their ideas, then why give people prizes for good ideas?

"Never." Will you criticize a mass shooter? Or a person who wants to see animals harmed for their entertainment? Certain ideas are so dangerous and terrible that simply reasoning with the people holding them is not protection enough.

I disagree with it too but I don't think your argument is good enough. They're arrested for joining the terrorist group which not only signals intention but means and possibly opportunity to carry out actions.

Your questions are about an action and a desire (or intention), not about ideas. Your last sentence was acknowledged and addressed by their post I think...

>write manifestos saying they want to harm people?

Hopefully we don't arrest people for writing things. We should arrest people for actions, not thoughts. Arresting people for thoughts is .. thoughtcrime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

I've known people arrested for writing content for Al-Qaeda.

(They didn't write content for Al-Qaeda, but they were accused and arrested for it).

People should be arrested for "Thoughtcrime" if their thought crime is the assertion that they are about to kill people.

Yes, don't criticize individuals, but I'm not sure if criticizing 'bad ideas' is a good idea.

YCombinator literally don't get into providing a lot of advice on markets because it's just too difficult predict at the nascent stage.

Bad policy, bad operations, bad code, yes.

With ideas, there's so much that may need to be fleshed out, left uncommunicated. An idea is more of an 'inspiration' for something, not the thing itself.

The older I get the less critical I am in that area, and I often try to be my own devil's advocate i.e. 'how could I make that work'?

But I think I know what you mean.

And yes, some ideas are just really bad.

What about when people have bad judgment or bad execution or bad habits? (Maybe the answer is still none because you can't fix those things...)

That works for friends and collegial scenarios.

Sometimes you find yourself in adversarial scenarios where no nuance can exist, and the counterparty is disinterested in coming to consensus. You’re in a time box that doesn’t allow for philosophical discussion.

In short, sometimes you deal with assholes, and sometimes it’s productive to just call them assholes.

I'm wondering what's your success rate at _not_ having your criticism of bad ideas be taken anyway as a criticism of the person. In my experience, people are fragile, and have a tough time separating the rational from the emotional (if such a separation is even possible).

This is a learned skill, and it's on the listener to not take the criticism personally if it's not directed personally.

I had to do this at my last job, and let me tell you, once you get over the hump of criticizing ideas instead of the person, things get a lot more efficient.

It's great.

Should we criticize bad content? Lots of content isn't necessarily based on particular ideas. But it's low effort or offensive.

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